Wish me luck ...

Over a year has past since I started this blog to chronicle my European "education" ... which was unfortunately cut short when I (near as I can figure) simultaneously caught every cold and flu that I had missed out on upon my brief return to the US in July ... I missed my flight to Madrid, and subsequently my month and a half in Spain ... I beg my good spanish friends to forgive me ... perhaps Spain was not ready for me yet ... you will have a few more years to prepare :)





I am back in Cleveland now, and seeing how the good things have stayed the same during my absence (like bbq's on the front porch) ... my immune system is fully recovered just in time for my Infectious Disease rotation as I begin to pretend to be a doctor for real this time ... armed with my new perspectives and a massage table (I'm also taking classes to get certified in massotherapy), I'm ready to make a healing difference in peoples' lives ... all I have to do is remember all of the medicine that I forgot during my year off ....


Wish me luck ...

Final Few Days ...

During my final few days in Italy ... went to the sold out summer opera annual premiere of Verdi's Aida in the Verona amphetheatre (although unfortunately they didn't have live elephants this year) ...

And then was joined by a very dear friend, who helped me explore Urbino, Vicenza and gigantic quattro formaggio pizzas (lactose intolerance be damned!) ...

And then graduation ... according to the EU and three universities, I'm now credentialed as a advanced master of bioethics (finishing magna cum laude ... whatever that means in this situation ... if the priests in my program only finished cum laude, does that mean that I have a greater command of ethics?!? God help us ...)

What an interesting journey it's been for all of us ... much like with the quattro formaggio, I guess I just need more time to digest it all

Under the Tuscan Cloud ...

Spent a few days in the towns surrounding Siena and Firenze trying to get in touch with my inner Medici … trying to avoid tourists and amazing rain storms, and discovering that beauty is to be found everywhere -- even out of bathroom windows !

Rome if you want to ...

Rome is a city that obliterates reasonable perspective ... from the Pantheon (a spectacle in engineering that has been in continuous use for nearly two thousand years, with its original doors) to the Vatican Museum/Basilicae (the greatest demonstration of Renaissance politics and imperial power) to the 3rd century Christian catacombs (22km of underground passageways) on the Via Appia, Rome makes make most modern marvels seem unnecessary and redundant. It took me a great deal of effort to see the city in its past glories (with far more substance than its surface value as a modern tourist Mecca), and I believe, perhaps more than any other city, a full appreciation of it is very much an acquired taste.

Raphael started his best work there when he was 22 …
Michelangelo was 23 when he did his Pieta …

I’m 27, and have only just finished yet another Master’s thesis, which probably wouldn’t be enough to cover the Sistine Chapel (nor be nearly as decorative) … although it sure would be fun to try :) ...

but then again, don't they say something about Rome not being built in a day ...

We Saw Warsaw ...

Met up with some friends in Warsavia and Krakovia for a few glorious days of music festivals, fellowship and Polish alcohol (Zywiec and Wodka Zoladkowa Gorzka) … enjoying the multiple realities of an emerging capitalist Eastern Europe that is still shedding its Soviet skin … hoping that what survived the cold war doesn’t fall victim to market forces ...


Examining the lounges that now repopulate the Kazimierz district (the old jewish ghetto) … Attending mass in one of Pope JP II’s old churches in Rynek Glowny and then crossing the street for a coffee at one of Lenin’s favorite old cafes ...


A disturbingly gorgeous day at Auschwitz … while I can see why “writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric’’ (Theodor Adorno), it seems as though nature doesn’t always agree …

My backyard ...

If I had to find a word to replace ‘music’, the only word I can think of is ‘Venice’” – Friedrich Nietzsche

Living only 30 minutes from the “Most Serene Republic”, I often find myself wandering the canals searching for inspiration, hunting ghosts or just entertaining foreign dignitaries (most notably, my parents) … Here are a few of the better images that I’ve captured while contemplating the How and Why -- trying to get intimately familiar with the Where …

The Ae-NEIL-id

As I am in Europe getting a Master's Degree in a Philosophy-related discipline, a visit to ancient Greece seemed to me a required experience ...

Walking in the footsteps of Socrates and Aristotle in the big museum known as Athens ... trying to convince everybody (with great success) that I'm a student from Holland so that I could see all of antiquity for free -- debate the ethics of that !

I believe that God created the color blue for Greece ... this works on several levels as the Greeks are also notoriously pessimistic (documented to have a worse outlook on the coming year than even Iraqis), but I can't really understand why ...


After a few days in Thessaloniki developing a 10-euro-a-day cheap coffee habit with local student friends, I made the voyage out to Santorini (the most visually stunning place I have ever been) .... where I rented a quad to explore the island's red/black sand beaches and wineries, and to hunt for colors, shapes and shadows (in true Platonic fashion) of all forms ...

For more spectacles from my odyssey, wander over to the "Greece" photo link on the right ...

Padova ...

The last chapter in my formal European education ...
Benvenuto a Padova !

Settling down to classes at Universita Padova - the third oldest in the world (1222) and the host to some of the most important discoveries/work of Copernicus, Galileo, Dante, Veselius, Donatello (unfortunately, not the ninja turtle) ... and hopefully, me

A few days of orientation, including a reception at city hall in the Prato Della Valle (largest square in Europe, second only to Red Square in Moscow) ...

English is a luxury, and I've been told that my Italian is like a Spanish girl's English ... although nobody seems to know what that means either ...

And of course, getting used to the Italian lifestyle ... nothing working quite right the first few times (cell phone, PAINFULLY slow internet, Italian beauracracy) ... 3.5 Euro three-course meals (with unlimited vino rosso in the soda dispensers) at the University mense/canteens ... and the fact that it is perpetually 75 degrees and sunny.

Oh, how we suffer for our art ...

Loose Ends All Tied Up ...

My final few days in the Netherlands have been rather intense ... finishing exams, struggling to complete my thesis, working on a few manuscripts ... we will see whether this addiction follows me to Italy, or if pasta will be enough to occupy my attention ...



Competing with this alleged productivity ... an indulgence in the sights and smells of a welcomed Dutch Spring ... A visit to Keukenhof Gardens, the largest flower garden in Europe open only two months a year, with more colors than an enormous Crayola box !


I've posted more pictures of this and my journeys to Budapest and Vienna on my secondary Flickr site (I maxed out the free limits of the first one) ... http://www.flickr.com/photos/7761422@N08/ ...



Tonight I got to witness a lopsided 2-1 slogging of Eredivisie powerhouse PSV Eindhoven by the home side of NEC - Nijmegen ... a beautiful fairwell to my days as a temporary Nederlander (an eendagvliegen, of sorts)

Wien ...

On to Vienna, for more culture, cafes and caffeine ...

Spent the majority of my time searching out the elegant cafes that were the storied favorites of Klimt, Hitler, Beethoven, Freud, Trotsky, and my grandparents ...

After an afternoon waiting in line, standing room tickets for Beethoven's Fidelio at the Staatsoper ... better than the otherwise-120 + euro price of admission ... the simple pleasures of feeling cheap and out of place ...

A tram trip out to the Zentralfriedhof to see the grave of Falco (the man with the genius to ask WHAT IF Mozart had been a member of an 80's biker gang) as well as the graves of Brahms, Beethoven, the Strauss clan and 2.5 million other non-musicians ...

And no Vienna trip / reinactment would have been complete without a late night screening of an original print of the Carol Reed/Graham Greene/Orson Wells classic The Third Man in a small theatre off the Ringstrasse ... definitely a highlight, and certainly worth the trademark Anton Karas tune stuck in my head all the way to Bratislava !

Separating the Buda from the Pest ...

(subtitle: The Fourth Noble Truth)

With a week before my exams and a weath of reading and theory to still digest, I grabbed my books and headed towards the appropriately-timed Spring Festival in Budapest, Hungary.

By night, studying in opulent fin-de-siecle Hapsburgian coffeeshops ...


During the day, wandering in search of sun, scenes and sensations ... (such as this rhino with cherry blossoms, an all-too-unlikely combination)


And no Budapest experience would be complete without indulging in their numerous spas and baths (photo below of the idyllic Gellert Baths was pilfered from the internet ... understandably, cameras are not permitted in such environments ... fortunately, I was)


Most importantly, I was able to complete the virtuous cycle ... after being hungary in turkey (passing through Istanbul on my way to Amman in December), I was finally able to eat turkey in hungary this week ! Poetic closure ....

De Hoge Veluwe ...

On little more than a rumor and a hunch, I followed the springtime weather (and, technically, also a train and a bus) out to De Hoge Vueluwe National Park (about 6 km outside of Arnhem) ... the largest of its kind in Holland, it is home to a 26 km bicycle circuit through a wealth of the most wonderful and peaceful landscapes ...

After meandering through hours of vast and vacant landscapes (not encountering another soul), I stumbled upon the Kroller-Muller Museum ... the personal collection of the the park's benefactors houses a very familiar collection of Van Gogh's and Picasso's as well as a fine collection of pointalist works ...

The Museum also is home to Europe's largest sculpture garden ... spread out amongst the surrounding forrest ...

The day was so magical and the scene so magnificent that this short entry cannot begin to do it justice ... The source of some of my most pleasant memories of Europe ... I felt like I might be starting to understand what Aristotle meant by Eudaimonia ... (feel free insert your favorite "it's all greek to me" joke here____________ )

More of the day's beauty can be found on my Flickr site ... http://www.flickr.com/photos/nixdorff/

Nixdorff in Dusseldorf ...

Or was it the other way around ? It all depends on your perspective ... my first return to Germany in almost 12 years for a slight change in my own.

A quick daytrip for a Picasso exhibit focusing on his prolific years as an octogenarian ... I wonder if this is how the world is going to look to me in 50+ years

Escaped from the rain and the cold (you would think I would be used to it by now) to get overly-caffeinated and read some Heidegger and Husserl in a Starbucks on the Koningsallee ... seemed the most (ironically) apporpriate thing to do on several levels ... a wonerfully self-indulgent phenomenology !

Karnival ...

The university is closed for Karnival festivities and southern Netherlands is very much alive ... some images from 3 days of spectacle in Maastricht, Eindhoven and 's-Hertogenbosch (yes, the town's name actually starts with an apostrophe) ... perhaps the most authentic way to experience the Netherlands !